Ace-Walking

Complementary Therapies: The art of firewalking

Can the sacred art of firewalking help to banish fears and boost your potential for spiritual growth? Author Lisa Clark investigates

Can the sacred art of firewalking help to banish fears and boost your potential for spiritual growth? Author Lisa Clark investigates
Each of us, in our own lives, have proven time and time again that fire burns

Yet for thousands of years people have practised walking and dancing barefoot on hot coals, and for the most part, without burning. Firewalking has been used throughout time as a powerful metaphor. Vikings would walk on hot metal chains to show physical strength.Kalahari Kung bushmen walk on hot coals toheal their community. Hawaiian Kahuna priests walk the lava flows, and Fijians commonly still, to this day, dance on hot coals, as a rite of passage.

So, why did I want to stand barefoot before a path of glowing hot embers and risk the walk forward?

At least one answer lies in the nature of fire itself. Fire fascinates me. Its light and heat can comfort and threaten us, destroy ye ttransform. Fire has been at the centre of ceremonies, rituals, initiations and celebrations for thousands of years, in every tribe, every civilisation. Now, if you can change a universal law and make fire harmless – then what does that say about reality and your own role in its creation? What are your limitations, really?What other possibilities remain untapped, and stay unrealised?

Hot stuff

Firewalking is the practice of walking barefoot across a bed of burning coals without getting burned. It’s a powerful tool designed to help transform fear and to inspire people to do things they initially didn’t think were possible.It can show you that there is more to ‘reality’than you think, that many limitations which people experience in life are self-imposed,and that you can actually create your own reality for yourself in your work, family and intimate relationships.

It’s by far the most emotional, powerful,enlightening process I’ve ever participated inand I know that from the moment I stepped foot on those hot coals, my life changed significantly forever. I fire walked with Wizard Wellbeing in Glastonbury. It’s hosted by the most beautiful-hearted couple, Lisa and Max Connolly and between them, they really made the experience a completely magical one.

he workshop begins by discussing howto walk. Lisa believes that to minimise the risk, you have to walk with no fear and with confident, unfaltering assured steps, which,having just lit the fire, I was finding a little hard to contemplate. The lighting of the fire was incredibly powerful, as it gave me the opportunity to put my own focus and intent into the process and then watch as it burned throughout the course of the evening. Fire has always held magical properties for me and itwas positively hypnotic to come out between sessions and build a relationship with it, feel it’s majestic qualities licking at the wood and the heat on my face.

There were more than 30 firewalkers who all had different reasons for walking – some were doing it for charity while others were doing it to face fears, create a new beginning and in my case, let go of old limiting beliefs.

Feel the fear

One reason why people firewalk has to do with fear. Lisa Connolly says: “In your training before the fire walk itself, you learn to welcome feelings of fear and anxiety. It’s in the acceptance and awareness of such feelings that our potential is so often brought into expression. When you learn to dance with the fire in the presence of fear, you learn to deal successfully with fear whenever it arises. You learn to transform fearful situations into opportunities for growth, and to transform fear itself into a powerful ally.”

Walk the walk

Ask yourself these questions before deciding whether this experience is for you:

WHY WALK ON FIRE?

Everyone feels fear, it’s a natural human emotion. But what if that fear keeps you from doing something you really want to do? Or makes you believe you don’t want to do something that could end up being an amazing experience?

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a gut feeling and fear. One of the main points of fire-walking is to face a really large fear and connect to what is going on inside of you right at that moment. Ultimately,you must decide whether you’re going to take a walk or hang back, both of which are valid and have their own lessons.

CAN I GET BURNED?

Of course. You are stepping on embers or coals which can reach temperatures of 1200° fahrenheit. However, conducted correctly, a firewalk should result in no injury at all or at worse some small blisters.

HOW DO I DO IT SUCCESSFULLY?

Our experiments, research and experiences with firewalking have led us to the fact that there are only two things required to successfully walk across the fire,” says Lisa.“There are two things that all firewalkers throughout history have in common,” says Lisa. “First, you have to want to do it. This assumes a certain curiosity. Sounds simple doesn’t it? It is. Do you want to walk on fire?Secondly, you will need a firm belief in your body’s safety. It doesn’t matter how you get there, so long as when you step up to the fire,you know beyond a doubt that it is safe for you to walk across. Whatever has broughty ou to the firewalk, and whatever your intent;this is what a firewalk will give you.”

Tribal beats

The Drummers of Avalon drummed throughout the workshop which helped to build energy and anticipation and Lisa, who is a gentle, yet matter-of-fact facilitator, was very talented at building big, beautiful powerful energy among a group of strangers who I later went on to share the most important event of my life with.Throughout the evening we learned how to embrace fear and make friends with it and create a high state of energy that would match the energy of the fire, much like the Kung Shamans who walked for the empowerment and healing of their whole community.

The walk itself evoked emotion way beyond anything I’d ever expected to think and feel.Staring into the flames, feeling the crunch of hot coals beneath my bare feet really flicked an emotional switch in me that had been set to ‘off’for a while and once the tears began to flow,they didn’t stop. I let go of a lot of limiting thoughts as I crossed the coals and for about an hour after, I just sobbed. I hugged my beautiful friends who had come to cheer me on, and I sobbed. I hugged my new fire walking buddies and I sobbed, I sat round the fire after the event listening to everyone’s thoughts and feelings and I sobbed. Even now, when I think about the energy raised, the emotions shared, the fears that were let go of that evening, I just want to sob with joy. It really is the most incredible thing to experience.

“It’s an honour to teach the sacred art of fire-walking,” says Lisa. “As people arrive at a Wizard Firewalk some are frightened, and some are exhilarated by the thought of breaking illusions. I love to witness the changes in the fire-walkers as they pass through the fire. It’s thrilling to be apart of the magic that unfolds. As they pass over the red-hot coals burning at 1200 degrees fahrenheit you see the old conditioning and limiting beliefs burning off, leaving underneath the true qualities of the self, confident, pure and powerful. Truly wondrous alchemy.”

The walk evoked emotion way beyond anything I’d expected to think or feel

How is Firewalking Possible

“Physicists have studied the phenomenon of firewalking since the 1930s and have concluded that the normal firewalk can easily be explained by a combination of several factors,” says Karen Sterling of the leading Blaze Firewalking charity(blazefirewalking.com).

These are:

The carbon based embers conduct heatvery poorly and have a very low heat capacity,so although they are very hot there is actually not much energy to be transferred to the foot.

A 20 foot fire-walk is on average eight stepslong. The total contact time for each foot is approximately one second. This short contact time in combination with the slow conduction of heat from the embers results in very little heat being transferred to the foot.

The walkers’ feet cool between steps. Blood isa good conductor of heat and the blood flow through walker’s feet quickly conducts heat away from the soles of the feet.

The Leidenfrost effect may play a part. This occurs when a cold, wet object (like a foot)touches a hot, dry object (like a burning coal).The water vaporises, creating a barrier of steam between the hot and cold objects. Hence the two objects do not actually touch and evaporation from the cold object is much slowe than might otherwise be expected. Since steam is a relatively poor conductor of heat the foot does not get burned.

Stay safe

Fire walking is an exhilerating but also risky business and should always be carried out with a qualified and experienced practitioner. However Scott Bell of the popular UK Firewalk Charity ukfirewalk.com warns that it is essential to check credentials as because there is no governing body, anyone can call themselves an instructor and receive little or poor training.

He gives the following safety tips for choosing your firewalk:

The most important thing would be to look for an event which is hosted by an experienced firewalk instructor, that is,someone who can provide references that can be followed up independently.
The good companies have been around for many years and have clients who use their services on a regular basis, so always ask to speak to them directly.
Never walk unless the instructor walks first, if they do not have the confidence to walk across, then neither should you.
In my experience the events that go wrong are those when the instructor uses materials that they are unfamiliar with, people are forced to walk when they don’t want to or they have inexperienced instructors.